We were holding hands and walking toward the sunset when he proposed to me. We were at the beach. The evening was approaching so everyone was leaving. If you took a photo at that moment facing the sunset, you would have ended up getting a beautiful silhouette you would be proud to hang on your wall. I said in my head, “How romantic of him. He chose the beautiful moment of the day to propose. See how my heart is swelling.” When he realized I was quiet, he squeezed my hand and asked, “You haven’t said anything. You don’t like me that much?” I answered, “I wouldn’t be here with you if that was the case.” “Then say something,” He said. I was still quiet. Still staring at the setting of the sun.
“Ok.”
“Ok, what?”
“That’s my response. I’m your girlfriend”
I sat in the sand and asked him to take a photo of me. Photos record dates they were taken. Apart from having a photo of me on that day I also had the date of the proposal engrossed in a photo that I could keep forever. He took several photos. Only two came outright. Such a poor photographer.
We both didn’t have time to waste. He was thirty-three and I was twenty-nine going to thirty. He said he started his business when he was twenty-five years old and had dedicated eight years of his life pruning unwanted branches and spraying pesticides to kill off pests that threatened his business. The business was well established when he proposed to me. If anything played a part in my acceptance of his proposal, it was his work ethic. He wasn’t the kind of man who buried his head in his work and ignore everyone else. Lawson worked very hard and still had time for me.
He never missed my calls. He would be in a meeting with the president but when he sees my call he’ll tell the president, “Excuse me, Mr. President. I have to pick this one.” He put off work just to be with me. He rescheduled appointments so he could run and offer a helping hand. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me. There was nothing I asked that he didn’t provide. One evening, while staring into his eyes I asked him, “Have you always been like that? This caring? This considerate? This loving?” He asked, “Why do you ask?” I said, “If you’ve been all that then how am I the person who got you? You’ve been around. Why did no one find you all these years until I did?”
He thought my question was empty rhetoric but I needed an answer. He said, “I don’t know if I’ve always been like that but I can say I’m better today than yesterday. That’s what growth does to you. You begin to realign your priorities. You see the crap and pick what’s important. You see a lot of faces and are still able to pick which of them is good for you.”
“If that’s what growth does to you, it only means the best is yet to come.”
A year later we were married and living together. We both knew what we wanted from life so we didn’t want to waste time and watch the sun goes by when we had hay to make. One morning a woman who lives next to our house stopped me on my way to work. She said, “Sorry to bother you but can I have a minute with you?”
“Sure, why not?”
“It’s about your husband. My daughter tells me he had been pestering her, asking her to sleep with him. Just yesterday he called my daughter and she put him on a loudspeaker. I heard everything. He was promising her a lot of things if only she would allow him to have his way with her. My daughter is only twenty. Say something to your husband.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked her, “Is your daughter around? Can I speak to her?” She came, I asked and she confirmed. I thanked them and went away. My husband was already at work so I called him; “You asked to sleep with our neighbor’s daughter?” He asked, “A daughter of our neighbor? I don’t even speak to anyone around so how would I do that to a neighbor’s daughter?” I was shaking. “Lawson speak the truth?” He said, “It means you believe them?” I said, “Let’s talk about it when you come home this evening.”
I was seven months pregnant and we hadn’t had sex for months. I thought it was the reason he was out there looking for an alternative. We met in the evening. He admitted the fact that he had spoken to the neighbor’s daughter but only when the girl asked him to help her financially. “Maybe she’s badmouthing me because I didn’t give her what she needed. Don’t worry. I handle it from here.”
I listened to him attentively. He was trying his best to sound convincing but something about his answers didn’t sound right. I decided to let it go—not because I believed him but just so I could keep my sanity and keep my hormones that were running all over the place. A week after our daughter was born, I was cleaning his suit when I found a piece of paper in his breast pocket. It was a hotel receipt. The date was two weeks old. I went through his office bag and found a condom pack that has only one piece remaining. “Lawson, you’re cheating on me? What haven’t I done as a wife that you would cheat on me?”
He was lost for words. There was no way he could explain the hotel receipt and the rubber. He was pensive as I threw a barrage of questions at him. He said, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” The answer shocked the hell out of me as though I wasn’t the one looking for that answer. I screamed, “Why would you cheat on me? Have I ever been a bad wife? Do I deny you anything?” He answered, “That’s why I said I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I will be better from now on. Forgive me.
“How long have you been cheating?”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is. If I have to forgive you then I have to know the details.”
“It’s not like I go about cheating on you. It happened. Once or twice. I don’t know.”
“Lawson, make it easier for me to forgive you. I’m nursing your daughter. Free my mind so I can be the best mother to the child. How many times have you cheated on me?”
“I don’t know because I wasn’t counting but it wouldn’t be more than five times.”
I burst into tears. The baby started crying too. I said in my head, “Girl, I need help and attention at this moment than you do. I’m dying.” I needed someone to talk to so I called my mother. I told her I was coming home and she said I should come. When I got home I told her everything and she was equally shocked. She said, “It’s hard but try as much as you can to focus on your baby. Things get better in the end. A week later, Lawson came around. He apologized profusely to me and to my parents. My dad left the decision in my hands. My mom told me, “Go home and go through it with him. That’s the only way you can solve the issue.”
The following day, I went back home. One of the conditions I gave him was for us to start counseling so we can learn and forgive. He agreed. We went back to the pastor who counseled us before our marriage. Something was off about the counseling. It looked like the pastor didn’t see the weight of what I was going through. He said things like, “Cheating happens and it’s normal, especially when it comes to men. Pray about it and ask for forgiveness. The Lord our God will forgive and everything would be fine.” He didn’t reproach my husband in any way. He didn’t offer solutions to my heart and didn’t try to offer ways he could stop cheating. I felt it was a waste of my time so I stopped.
I learned to deal with it the hard way.
Months later, I went through his phone. He was talking to women. Some as young as eighteen. He was meeting them in hotels, at the beach, and in his car. One of them said, “I like it in the car. You make me feel owned.” They were current messages, some as new as hours old. I woke him up from his sleep and showed the message to him, “Lawson, what has come over you? Why are you doing this to us? Don’t I give you enough? Is there something I lack that you find in those women? Just talk about it with me. Be honest, I will do my best and change for you.” He said, “I don’t know what’s happening to me. Sometimes I feel it’s spiritual. I have no reason for cheating but …”
I took it personally. I felt I was the reason why he was cheating. I could wake up at dawn and think about everything I needed to change just to make him happy. I read magazines, I went online to read on “how to change a cheating husband.” I did all they said I should do but I caught him cheating again, this time with a call girl. I held his shirt by the collar and pulled him into his car. I said, “Drive!” He asked, “Where are we going?” I screamed, “Just shut up and drive.” All the thinking and scheming had turned me into a bitter person. I was getting violent. The good thing was Lawson never fought back whenever I caught him cheating. I could slap him and he will turn the other cheek, yet he’s a very strong man.
That day, we drove to the hospital and had an HIV test. Both of us were negative. It didn’t solve my problem. I was always scared that he would bring a disease home that would end up killing me and my daughter. I couldn’t sleep well. Some nights I will lay in bed looking at him and thinking of all the places he had been and the kind of women he had slept with. I developed a severe migraine that threatened my life each day. I went to the hospital every week telling them about the same migraine. One day the doctor looked at me and said, “Tell me whatever you’re going through in your life. I’m a woman. I understand how things could affect our health.”
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I poured everything in my heart out while crying. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there nodding and making eye contact while I speak. She asked me, “So why are you still with him? Have you asked yourself that question?” I said, “Doctor, he’s a good man. I don’t lack anything and there’s nothing he won’t do for me. I only have to ask and he gives it to me. I can ask him to die and he will say, “If that will make your life better.” He’ll do all that and still go out there and cheat. How is that possible doctor?” She said, “Think about the answer for yourself. But remember, at some point in life you need to choose yourself over everything else. He doesn’t have answers to why he cheats. It doesn’t mean you can’t have answers for yourself.”
When I was leaving, she asked me, “How do you feel?” I said, “Better.”
For a week, I never experienced that migraine again. I said to myself, “I know the answer.”
He had returned from work when I gave him the divorce papers. He didn’t see it coming. He asked, “Has it come to that?” I answered, “Exactly what it has come to.” I packed my things and left, knowing that I did my best for him to change. He tried to change my mind. His parents called me and asked why I’m running away from my vows. After narrating my story his mother asked me, “And you’ve been living with him all these years?” I said, “It’s been only four years. I was only trying to change him.” She said, “I would have left the first time.”
We are over but there’s a chord that runs right through us—that always pulls us closer. Our daughter. He takes very good care of her and provides for all her needs. I’ve never paid fees or paid medical bills. He does everything while I stay with her being her mother. He’s a man who knows how to provide and how to care, and how to propose in the sunset. I like him for that but why should a rose come with thorns? That I can’t answer. It bothers me that the sun set on our marriage too soon.
–Jullie
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